adam bien's blog

zunit is a zero-dependency, single-file Java 25 Script test runner. It discovers *Test.java source files and runs each directly via java --source 25. No compilation step, no JUnit, no build tool required — just run zunit and go.

A GreeterTest.java example:

void main() {
    var greeting = Greeter.greet("World");
    assert Objects.equals("Hello, World!", greeting) : "expected 'Hello, World!' but got: " + greeting;
}

Each test is a self-contained Java source script with a void main() method. Any thrown exception or non-zero exit code indicates test failure. Each test gets its own JVM — full execution isolation with zero shared state.

Run it with:

1. zunit to auto-detect and run all tests,
2. zunit -cp:zbo/app.jar for an explicit classpath
3. zb && zunit to build with zb first.

zunit is available from: github.com/AdamBien/zunit

The corresponding airails.dev skill is available from: github.com/AdamBien/airails/tree/main/java/zunit

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The talk covers how to build Java applications that auto-scale, are highly available, and run without traditional infrastructure overhead.

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

"Java 25 scripting is more capable than anticipated and produces shorter code than Python equivalents, LLMs know Java specs by heart due to publicly available specifications and stable APIs, grounding LLMs on JAX-RS and CDI specs eliminates hallucinations, BCE architecture works well with LLM code generation, junior developers can leverage LLMs to learn faster than ever before, Java 26 brings HTTP/3 client and structured concurrency and vector API, web components are the fastest UI technology being native to browsers, zero-dependency Java scripts replace Python and shell scripts, AI Rails skills system allows modular reuse of Java source code, java.util.logging with System.Logger facade is recommended over external logging frameworks, Java 9 JPMS was the main migration blocker from Java 8, measuring AI usage percentage as KPI is as problematic as code coverage metrics, brownfield projects benefit most from LLM assistance with good templates"

Ask questions during the show via twitter mentioning me: https://twitter.com/AdamBien (@AdamBien),using the hashtag: #airhacks or built-in chat at: airhacks.tv. You can join the Q&A session live each first Monday of month, 8 P.M at airhacks.tv

1. Preparing for the AI era as Java developers
2. airails.dev updates
3. Java 26 features: 10 JEPs including HTTP/3, Structured Concurrency, AOT Object Caching, Lazy Constants, PEM Encodings, Vector API
4. Time machine: 100 episodes back (44th episode):

   JavaONE talk: Java EE heavyweight or lightweight Mythbusters and the comparison to Spring, How to build a progressbar with HTML 5, JAXB deprecation in Java9, Virtual DOM vs createElement performance, Reference Implementations of EE4J, Issue with org.eclipse.ee vs. javax.*, Impact of Java SE release strategy to EE4j or JavaEE, EJB Timer synchronization in cluster, DB Views vs. JPA for reports, Architectural considerations with REST and Redis, Critique of the "Roller blogger engine" Java EE clone, Accessing SFSB from SLSB, SFSB and scalability, State and async JAX-RS

Any questions left? Ask now: gist.github.com/AdamBien/5c85d2a2d3b2079fc5d55209dd8fcc61 and get the answers at the next airhacks.tv. Some questions are also answered with a short video: 60 seconds or less with Java

Ask questions during the show via twitter mentioning me: https://twitter.com/AdamBien (@AdamBien),using the hashtag: #airhacks or built-in chat at: airhacks.tv. You can join the Q&A session live each first Monday of month, 8 P.M at airhacks.tv

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

"LLMs have been trained on decades of freely available Java specifications, including JSRs, JEPs, MicroProfile and Jakarta EE. They know the patterns. They know the standards. Now let's put them to work. In this live coding session, we'll use LLM agents to build production-ready Java applications quickly. No slides, no theory - just real code, real prompts, and real results. We'll start with a typical enterprise requirement and demonstrate how to guide LLMs to generate clean, maintainable Java code following BCE/ECB architecture patterns that actually work in production. Bring your questions - we'll answer them with code."

"In this special episode of the Inside Java Podcast, Nicolai Parlog talks to Adam Bien about scripting with Java, to Maurice Naftalin about the history and tradeoffs of the collections framework and erasure, and to Tom Cools about the innovative way the Belgian Java User Group organizes itself."

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

1. AI tools in software development: European companies' fear of AI solutions vs. the rest of the world -- will the EU fall further behind?
2. Upcoming JDK 26 features worth waiting for
3. Number of Java "shorts" tools in daily use
4. MCP server for Maven Central repository
5. airails.dev announcement
6. Zero Dependency Java Seeds announcement: github.com/adambien/zeeds
7. Time machine: 100 episodes back (43rd episode):

   JavaONE 2017 News: keynotes, impressions, EE4J, project FN, Dynamic JMS listeners, SSO, timeout and JWT, Serverside rendering vs JavaScript UI, openJDK vs. Oracle JDK in Docker, User properties and Keycloak, Testing JAX-RS with Keycloak, 2 EARs one EJB jar problem, Java EE and logging, JSF conversations with architects, Java EE versioning strategies, User-friendly URIs in MVC / Ozark, Optimistic and pessimistic locking, Ideas for overengineering Pet Projects, WildFly Datasource configuration in Docker, @RequestScope with @Suspended, Implementing a batch job, POJO and JsonObject serialization in Java EE, Qualifier instantiation in Java EE, JPA-level security, bind vs. self / this in JavaScript

Any questions left? Ask now: gist.github.com/AdamBien/0ca87bbd4b765764c5de295fc34ac6b6 and get the answers at the next airhacks.tv. Some questions are also answered with a short video: 60 seconds or less with Java

Ask questions during the show via twitter mentioning me: https://twitter.com/AdamBien (@AdamBien),using the hashtag: #airhacks or built-in chat at: airhacks.tv. You can join the Q&A session live each first Monday of month, 8 P.M at airhacks.tv

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

1. Agent zSmith
2. How to define the size of a connection pool for a database on the cloud?
3. Java And Apple Shortcuts
4. Zero-Dependency News
5. Overbooked Workshops
6. Time machine: 100 episodes back (42nd episode):

   ForkJoin support in Java EE 8, Java FX in the browser, Code coverage in system tests, Opensource Java EE, Auto-scanning JAX-RS resources, Java and the job market, @Stateless as an interceptor?, Asynchronous CDI Events, Empty POST or PUT, @Stateful EJBs and usecases for the Gateway pattern, Will CDI replace EJB in the future?, Java EE 7 server recommendations, GlassFish clustering / workshop, JSF and pixel perfect applications, Impact of react and angular on the delivery pipeline, How to build JS frontends with Java EE backends, Using multithreaded JAX RS 2.0 in Java SE, Incrementally splitting a monolith: protocols, security processes

Any questions left? Ask now: gist.github.com/AdamBien/3c2c2eaeb07e551d1af162d61b693c30 and get the answers at the next airhacks.tv. Some questions are also answered with a short video: 60 seconds or less with Java

Ask questions during the show via twitter mentioning me: https://twitter.com/AdamBien (@AdamBien),using the hashtag: #airhacks or built-in chat at: airhacks.tv. You can join the Q&A session live each first Monday of month, 8 P.M at airhacks.tv

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

May your 2026 be as clean as your pom.xml:

🎊Wishing you a year where:

1. Your main() method stays simple and your classpath stays empty.
2. You forgot the import statements.
3. You never have to explain why you don't need Spring for a REST endpoint.
4. Your JAR files remain measured in kilobytes, not megabytes.

May your code compile faster than others can download their node_modules.

🥂 Here's to a year of:

jshell experiments

that actually make it to production

Records

that replace your boilerplate

Pattern matching

that makes your switch statements beautiful

Virtual threads

that make your concurrent code readable

String templates

that end your StringBuilder nightmares

May your dependencies be few, your JDK be current, and your NullPointerExceptions be... well, actually helpful now!

"🎆 In 2026, may you write code so clean that even the JVM garbage collector gets bored."

Happy New Year! May your builds be fast, your tests be green, and your stack traces be short!

The wishes were generated by zSmith, a Java 25 zero-dependency agent:

import airhacks.zsmith.agent.boundary.Agent;

void main() {
  var newYearAgent = new Agent(
  """
  As a marketing specialist,
  you focus on humorous wording
  for specific occasions,
  such as New Year's.
  """
  ).withTemperature(0.1f);

  var response = newYearAgent.chat("""
    Write New Year wishes for
    all the Java developers out
    there who write simple Java 25 code
    without any external dependencies.
  """);
  IO.println(response);
}

The above content was originally created in a YouTube short on: youtube.com/bienadam/shorts:

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

Subscribe to airhacks.fm podcast via: spotify| iTunes| RSS

1. Java vs. C++ performance
2. Angular with or without AI
3. Web development trends and opinions
4. Testing business logic with external dependencies
5. BCE - where to put DTOs
6. How to build a multi-tenant monolith
7. Time machine: 100 episodes back (41st episode):

   "React over Angular? ...and WebStandards, JSR-375 and REST, Reactive Programming vs. CompletableFuture, Blocking @Asynchronous calls, Interceptors with EntityManager, AMQP and data masses, To Framework Or Not To Framework, Unit Testing Primefaces, Multi-Threaded JAX-RS 2.0 Clients, Java EE "vs." .NET, Dynamic entities, Data encryption, Working offline with JPA, Sample Projects, Industry trends, Conferences and Co., Server Side Rendering with Java EE 7, Naming CRUD in BCE, Java 9 Logging interface, Generic REST client, React.js / Polymer examples, Session replication challenges"" adambien.blog/roller/abien/entry/react_over_angular_reactive_programming

Any questions left? Ask now: adambien.blog/roller/abien/entry/react_over_angular_reactive_programming and get the answers at the next airhacks.tv. Some questions are also answered with a short video: 60 seconds or less with Java

Ask questions during the show via twitter mentioning me: https://twitter.com/AdamBien (@AdamBien),using the hashtag: #airhacks or built-in chat at: airhacks.tv. You can join the Q&A session live each first Monday of month, 8 P.M at airhacks.tv